Why do China sellers never send items and just refund?

[truewind13]

Why do Ebay sellers from China always do this?

You can clearly see on the auction that they have enough items in stock of what I won or buyed out.  My package is shipped and I wait and wait and wait and wait, 3 weeks pass, never received anything, so I message the seller and they just refund me the next day.  No offers to resend a new item, no concerns whatsoever about the package, they just refund me on the spot.

Sometimes they'll even include an invalid tracking number that can't be found anywhere!  I even messaged the seller and asked what URL to use to track my package and they always reply back with nonsense and completely avoided my question.  I have to message the same question almost 3 times before they finally give me a URL and admit that I "may not find it for no valid reason whatsoever."  Then after a month I never receive the item and they just refund me on the spot.

This only happens with sellers from China!  I have zero problems with sellers from Japan or Korea, but China?  Out of the 10 items I dared buy from them I only received 1 of those auctions!  All 9 others were just refunded because it was never delivered.  Everyone else I know that dared buy from China have the same problem as me and never get their items and simply get refunded on the spot.

I sense a scam here!  Why would a seller pretend to ship an item and then just refund us when we say we never got the item?  I can think of a few reasons:

- They're gathering a database of all our home addresses.  Why?  Who knows.  Maybe they're going to sell it to ad companies so they can fill our mailboxes with garbage ads someday.

- They're gathering our Paypal email addresses.  Why?  I dunno.  It's not like they can steal our credit card numbers, but by paying them with Paypal, they now know our Paypal emails and may want to use that for something shady.

Can anyone else think of other reasons why China sellers would do something like this?  Because I'm absolutely fed up with them.  It's bad enough that they spam Ebay.ca with hundreds of auctions for the same item that I would like to purchase from Japan or Korea instead!  I have to go through pages and pages of auctions just to find the ones from Japan or Korea and buy those!  Why can't Ebay add a filter so we can easily block Auctions from a specific country?  I WANT TO PERMANENTLY BLOCK ALL CHINA AUCTIONS SO THEY NEVER APPEAR IN MY SEARCH RESULTS!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm also going to report all China sellers that pull this kind of shady auction system and you should too!  The next time you buy something from China and you never receive your item and they just refund on right away, make sure you report them for scamming!  They're most likely using your home address and Paypal email for something bad and they need to be stopped!

[pocomocomputing]

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@deontaz wrote:
Another Canadian customer suffering the same problem; used to buy low-cost electronic components from China, for Arduino projects etc -- but now it seems like half of the stuff never arrives. It gets confusing trying to keep track of orders that old... stuff comes in 90 days after order date and gee, by then you hardly remember placing the order and have probably purchased it over again in the interim from a N American vendor because you needed it for a project deadline.

I do suspect that some of these sellers are banking the money and getting a tiny margin of interest on it before the inevitable refund (or in many cases, buyers who just plain forget they placed the order). Nickel and dime stuff, but if you can pull it off a few hundred times I guess it adds up. I suspect that others are "crowdfunding" their production run in advance. Cheap container-ship shipping may also contribute (packages held until a full cargo is accumulated before the ship sails).

The last few months, have also been suffering from eBay 's "free shipping" program which for some reason has defined my postal code as "remote" so most of my orders to Canadian sellers get cancelled. eBay is not what it once was... sigh...

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I am curious by what you mean by this statement. Where are you located? In the North or in very remote regions of the provinces where shipping costs are very high?  I ask because I never knew that eBay Canada Sellers had any protection for Free Shipping when a remote location with high shipping costs made Free Shipping a loss for the seller.

[reallynicestamps]

Free Shipping is never 'free'.

The seller chooses to use it. Not eBay.

And it just means that the cost of shipping is included in the selling price.

I have a few fairly expensive items that include Free Shipping.

They are sent Parcel (Regular/Tracked/ Expedited/ even Priority) with Confirmation of Delivery and sometimes Signature Confirmation.

Because mama wasn't born yesterday, kiddo.

[hootersheadies]

I had this happen to me for the first time the other day. I have been waiting on an item from China, that at the latest should have been here July 9th. Never received it so I clicked on the sellers info and read some of their feedback. There were several negatives for exactly the same thing, never receiving an item. The seller's feedback percentage was 96.8%, ton of feedback though. I opened a case, the next day I received a refund no questions asked. I read the posters post right below yours, seems to be right on.

[femmefan1946]

The seller's feedback percentage was 96.8%,

This is very very low.

Never buy from a seller with less than 98% feedback, and if the seller is in Asia make that 99%.

And as you did, read the feedback for patterns of slow or no delivery, or poor communication, or terrible quality.

The prompt refund may be a sign of an honest seller. Most people are honest.

If the item eventually turns up, you can return the refund using Paypal's Send Money service.

[kfj1955]

I live near Vancouver. I just received an item posted in April from China.

[puritygems]

I buy stuff from China all the time and usually it's great. Sometimes it's a bit slow but most times I get what I ordered. In the last 50 orders from China maybe 2 didn't show up. It's a pretty good ratio and Ebay is great at refunding in the rare case it doesn't come.

[tyler@ebay]

Hey everyone,

Due to the length of time that has passed since this thread began I have locked it from future replies. If this is still an issue that warrants discussion, don't hesitate to begin a new thread!